Building a new motor and I've been hearing a lot of people saying that synthetic sucks. I was using Castol Syntec on my car and blew the motor at 79K. Whats your opinion?

 

really the only advantage og synthetic is it last longer but cost is higher so i dont really think you are gaining anything....imho oil is oil i have used havaoline in my car and it has 144,000 on the original engine...i have 2,000 and some change on the 396 and again i use havoline

 

I have always used Mobil 1 Synthetic in my cars and wife's cars and never had a problem.
I know a mechanic who only uses Mobil 1 Synthetic and he awears by it.
My dad has always used regular oil, and never had a problem either.
So, i tend to agree with predator, oil is oil, it's probably just what you're more comfortable in using and what you've had good luck with.

It would be interesting to see some honest tests of oil comparisons that don't involve any oil manufacturers. Regular vs synthetic. My .02

 

Real world experiance from when we started using synthetics.

Several years ago we were having problem with our 300 ci small block which we ran in A/EA. The thrust on the rear bearing would be trashed after about 5 runs from the converter expanding. After trying several fix's we made the change to Mobile 1 synthetic and the life of the thrust bearing more than doubled.

It is a proven fact that synthetic last longer and has superior lubricating qualities. Dino oil has it's place and synthetic is not good for all situations but synthetic is a far superior oil.

 

I switched to mobile one and have been very happy with it. I'd run some sorta synthetic...royal purple is supposed to be the best but it can be tough to find.

 

http://web.camaross.com/forums/showt...hreadid=154214

tons of oil information.

 

Yes, I would recommend that you do a search on this topic. It gets thrashed around frequently.

 

I will always use mobil one for this reason here 112k spotless I change it @3k miles ....

 

At 79k I tore the engine down, and it was spotless. No gunk, nothing. Granted, I always chenge my oil every 2000 miles.
I am just picky about my car.
FWIW, I have torn down 2 sb 350s this year already and both had used regular oil, they were both in good shape.
its really a matter of preference and regular oil changes, regardless of the kind of oil ya use.

 

From what I have read,synthetic is a waste of $.I have seen test on NYC taxi's being torn down.The engines(one with synthetic,other dino)showed no difference in wear.

 

to me synthetic is a wate of money the killer of our engine is not the oil its the dirt in the oil and ive got news for you, synthetic gets just as dirty just as fast. and i dont want dirty oil in my engine.

if you run synthetic for 6 or 7000 miles and conventional oil for 3ooo miles your synthetic going to be twice as dirty. being that there driven in the same eviroment.

but if you have the money to use synthetic every 3000 miles that would be great.

 

This debate will rage on forever. Synthetics are superior in terms of their long drain capabilities, and cold weather performance.

If you live in a moderate climate and change your oil every 3k, you'll see almost no benefits from using synthetic oil. There are a heck of a lot of cars on the road with over 200k on them that have run nothing but conventional oil.

 

Hey Patman,

I switched to Mobil 1 0w40 based on your recommendations, did you ever decide what is an appropriate length of time to let it run in an engine?

 

You can best determine the interval by doing an oil analysis on it, however it's safe to say that for most cars, 5 or 6k is easily achievable unless there are other serious issues (such as if there is a coolant leak, or you're getting a lot of fuel in the oil or if you do very short trips in cold weather for instance)

I'd really like to see someone with an LT1 do an oil analysis on Mobil 1 0w40, as I believe this viscosity will show much better wear numbers than Mobil 1 5w30 or 10w30, due to the LT1 having larger clearances than most engines, and Mobil 1 5w30 and 10w30 are on the thin side of the 30wt scale.

I'm now running German Castrol Formula SLX 0w30 in my Firebird, which is almost a 0w40 actually. If things don't work out and I don't like my wear numbers, I am definitely considering trying out M1 0w40.

 

I drive about 100+ miles every day, so I'll hit the 5k barrier real quick, would you like me to send you a sample of my oil so that you can run a test on it? Shoot me an e-mail and I'll see what I can do, I would like to hear what the numbers come out as too.